Musk's xAI sued over alleged Grok child abuse images

Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI has been sued in a California federal court over allegations that its Grok chatbot used images of a child sexual abuse victim to generate new abusive material.

The complaint was filed on Aug. 26 in the Northern District of California by an anonymous plaintiff identified as Jane Doe 1. It alleges that xAI designed Grok to alter real photographs of identifiable people into sexual content and to publish the results directly to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

The plaintiff is described in the lawsuit as a victim first identified by the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the early 2000s. The complaint says images of her abuse have circulated online for nearly two decades and alleges Grok drew on that material to create new imagery of her.

The lawsuit says the Canadian Centre for Child Protection identified AI-generated material depicting the plaintiff.

The filing seeks damages under Masha's Law, a US law that allows victims of federal child pornography offences to seek at least $150,000 per violation. It also asks the court to order the destruction of any illegal material the company holds. The plaintiff has demanded a jury trial.

The complaint links the allegations to a rise in Grok-generated sexual imagery that it says began in late December. Citing research by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the complaint says Grok produced more than three million sexualized images in the 11 days to Jan. 8, including more than 23,000 that appeared to show children.

The lawsuit alleges xAI initially restricted image generation to paying subscribers rather than disabling the feature. It also contrasts xAI's approach with rivals including OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, which it says largely block sexual image requests.

SpaceX, which acquired xAI in February, did not immediately respond to AFP's request for comment. The case is at least the second class action to accuse xAI over Grok-generated abuse material, after a separate case brought this year by three Tennessee teenagers was expanded to include additional plaintiffs and image-creator Stability AI as a defendant.